What Is The Best Way Of Accepting Yourself?

What Is Acceptance?

I found that through relating with others, that like most of the philosophy that I live under, that acceptance isn’t just about the belief itself. Like we may have come to know just because we believe in accepting others, doesn’t mean that we live what we believe. So taking this to heart and to really turn it into a practical skill in every day life takes some re-orchestrating of what it means to accept each other. One of the main things with acceptance first comes with accepting yourself.

Without completely accepting yourself you live in a filter that colors others with those delusions.

And they most certainly will manifest in others what you don’t like about yourself. I feel this is important to see because then we can start looking into what about ourselves that we are not particularly comfortable with facing. I will also reach into the great stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger for some inspiration in this area. One of my all time favorite quotes of this brilliant man is as follows

“…Why does not one admit his failings? Because he’s still deep in them. It’s the person who’s awakened who recounts his dream, And acknowledging one’s failings is a sign of health.” – Seneca

What he’s getting at above is that only until we see ourselves from moment to moment completely are we able to change those parts of us that are no longer working to our benefit.

On Accepting Yourself Completely.

So at a very practical level, you want to be able to dive even into the uncomfortable parts of yourself that make you completely who you are from moment to moment. By discovering this part of you and openly seeing that is part of you too. You now have that power to start to use emotional alchemy. That is, to change it in a way that will not only benefit you, but benefit your relationships with other people.

By accepting yourself, and dropping your old ideas about yourself, opens you up to have less of a filter that paints a grey overcast picture on your life.

I will however tell you that in my experience of this, is it isn’t always going to be an easy process. This often brings up stuff that you haven’t dealt with before. It may be really hard to sit with some of the things that may come up, and can create some emotional turbulence which may require your loving compassion and mindfulness toward yourself. I wouldn’t take back what I have gone through though in my experience of acceptance It has brought me mental growth, has brought me closer to my parents, friends, and others who I can openly say that I love and still maintain friendships with.

One last misconception about this process is that, people think by wanting to change those aspects about us isn’t acceptance, I would beg to differ. Just because we see and accept that is the way we are right now doesn’t mean that we don’t need to learn to work to make ourselves happy in making things more efficient (if that is what you want to do.)

It comes down to your discernment at this point which things can stay and which things can go in place of new possibly better things. You become your own guinea pig.

What Are The Consequences of Accepting Yourself?

These consequences aren’t actually bad. As a by-product of the accepting yourself movement, you begin to accept others as well. You also might begin to have a sense of compassion for others that are currently stuck in this trap. This process also leads to the begin process of self-content nature. It also allows love to flow in where you had been blocking it to do so based on what you thought you should or shouldn’t have been.

By accepting yourself, you will begin to accept others for who they are, and will see that you can now more easily drop your mental checklists of them, and that our nature is ever changing. It is in a constant state of flux just like you’ve seen your movement change so quickly, you begin to realize that every human being has this capability (not that it is always exhibited). It just takes a small change in mental perspective.

Accepting yourself is probably one of the best things you can do when relating to yourself and others.

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Nick Myers, a 28 year old serial blogger. Also minimalist, zen participant, philosopher, author of Emotional Alchemist, and tea disciple. I am one who sees a potential lesson in every experience in life. Life is who we are and life is our ultimate guru. I seek to bring us together through our own shared experiences. And hope to not only learn deeply who I am but to learn deeply who others are by dropping my ideas from moment to moment about you.

People who can accept their own limitations and shortcomings are less likely to be critical of others. They’re also likely to be a good deal happier as well, not always striving after an inhuman perfection.

agreed! And it’s so interesting to me to see that people often operate in the opposite manner. Instead of accepting it, they run away. Maybe it’s a not knowing that dealing with stuff as it comes up is a lot less painful then repressing everything.